A Rape in Cyberspace raised a whole mess of issues that definitely exceeded the realm of new media but were nonetheless defined by its boundaries. Dibbles underlying questions is where the line between the cyber world and the physical world lies. In a system where we can talk, learn, play games, act and make love all on a textual basis, how do we decipher what is “real” and what isn’t? Rape is the ultimate violation. When the MUD character Mr. Bungle forced another character to defile herself with a kitchen knife he was touching on all of the issues that arise with unwanted solicitation: choice, consent, harm, and so many more. He asserted his power and dominance over her not with his physical strength but with typed codes in an online chat room. There was no physical evidence that she was hurt by this knife but the emotional trauma was there.
In a world where a sexual encounter between two people can seem like consensual sex to one and rape to another, how can anyone say that this aggressive and hostile textual action in a nonphysical realm wasn’t rape? LamdaMOO player HerkieCosmo made the following hypothesis, “perhaps it’s better to release…violent tendencies in a virtual environment rather than real life.” The same argument has been made for pornography that could be made for these online communities; it is the best way/place for people to play out their fantasies or release aggression because in these arenas there is no physical harm done to anyone. There are two major flaws with this comparison and conclusion: one is the idea that sexual assault only hurts the victim physically and two is that pornography has been proven to not deter sexual offenders from acting on these tendencies.
According to Michael Flood, a researcher from the Australian Research Center on Sex, Health and Society viewing porn, “does increase the likelihood that [rape] will happen.” (from womensrights.choice.org) now obviously there is a vast difference between porn and online communities. Porn is a known misogynistic industry that offers still and moving images frequently showing sexual scenarios of male dominance while for a majority of the participants in cyber textual communities it is just another space for social interaction. The strong-linking argument is that it’s a positive space for acting out fantasies.
There are many cyber communities that are specifically geared toward this type of social interaction. Just in my quick internet search for this response I found that 3 of the first 10 listen items on my google search were for rape fantasy groups. In this way cyberspace does offer a safe community to handle these issues but it is not a solution by any means. Here you have people volunteering to communicate in cyberspace that is geared toward this type of dialogue. However, if someone has such violent sexual fantasies that they border on rape, so powerful that they need to act them out in a virtual reality those issues need to be dealt with in the physical reality as well. These people need counseling and support. It’s a fine line between supporting an outlet for unconventional fantasies and facilitating a space where potential rapists can dive deeper into the darkest parts of their psyche.
The defining difference between any of those online communities and what happened in LamdaMOO was that an innocent victim was in fact hurt. The wounds of a rape victim are not healed with the closing of the last cut or smoothing over of the final bruise. Emotional trauma is carried by these victims often times for life. While the LamdaMOO victim had no bruises or cuts and absolutely struggled with the shame, violation and powerlessness felt by victims of physical rape. Here the line between cyperspace and “real space,” faded away and were crossed.
Dibble’s coverage on the LamdaMOO’s communal reaction and democratic debate over the rape and the question of physical and cyber realms did offer great insight to the composition and character of these online textual communities. A day in the life of a LamdaMOOer may not have been the most effective way to show the intricate details of this community’s make up. However, her coverage on this assault allowed the reader to see the history, landscape and law of the daily life in an online community. It also showed that this truly was a community and not just an online house party. The entire network was affected and hurt by this assault and they all participated in the debate and support of the victim.
Wow, that was truly upsetting. It really does seem like the lines between the virtual world and the real world are getting blurred, and all the perversions and dangers of the real world are being crossed over to the internet. You just can't feel safe anywhere anymore.
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